


Anonymity

by thebasement_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-07-10
Updated: 2001-07-10
Packaged: 2018-11-20 11:07:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11334483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebasement_archivist/pseuds/thebasement_archivist
Summary: Krycek abducts Mulder in an attempt to free him of his sexual inhibitions & gives him another truth to pursue.





	Anonymity

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Basement](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Basement), which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Basement's collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thebasement/profile).

 

Anonymity by Lush_Virtues

Anonymity - By Lush_Virtues <>  
Rating - NC17  
Disclaimer - Chris Carter & 1013 may have legal ownership of the names, but their claim is to title only. The emotional well being of Krycek & Mulder in CC's hands ceased some time ago. Usual disclaimers about money / profit etc. apply here.  
Warnings - some angst / NC  
Pairing - M/K  
Archive - feel free to - but please let me know.  
Feedback - Yes please. This is my first attempt.   
Spoilers - None  
Summary - Krycek abducts Mulder in an attempt to free him of his sexual inhibitions & gives him another truth to pursue.  
Thanks - to Rupert Thomson for The Book of Revelation, an idea borrowed and adapted for our boys. Also to Tim Wheeler & Robert Smith for writing the purist poetic love songs, and lastly to Bertina for doing the Beta thing. Cheers !

* * *

"Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings; they did it by killing all those who opposed them."

Anonymity

I always knew that it would happen this way. Not here, not on this day - but like this. I have lost count of the number of times that I caught a glimpse in his eye, some recognition maybe. I'm never quite sure. His jaw tightens, his lips purse evocatively as he chews the lower one and yet the connection that binds us has remained elusive to him. I promised myself that I would never tell of our secret, of our liaison, which took him forward in his life. It was an investment of my time, for future reward at a date to be established, one which has drawn ever closer with each meeting, with each demonic glare, and with each and every connection he has made with my body in his vain attempts to overpower me.

There has been no reason to tell the story, it is our story - it always was, and always will be. It was planned, schemed and delivered with precision, its roots laid firm in musings that I had for the man. For his failed relationships and his need to be free of the chains with which he found himself bound. The bindings were self-imposed, but he lacked the knowledge of his own body to free the demons within. There would only ever be one way to explain, to reason with him, and that was my way.

As I lay in wait for Mulder, our cars parked in parallel to the side of me, I leaned back against the pillar. He could have been hours from leaving, it was difficult to know, but it was the moment I had selected and the decision required endorsement. It had to be followed through. I kept my body rigid, out of sight of the lift doors, knowing that the slightest movement would give rise to alarm. The cold concrete pressed into my shoulders, my leather jacket scraped against it as I pushed myself back up every ten or so minutes. It was roughly forty minutes after my arrival that I heard the rasp of metal scraping against metal followed by crisp solitary footsteps. The echo subsided as the steps moved closer, each gap identical to the last, and a constant rhythm as he passed by.

There was no flinch from him as I approached at speed from behind. He was too near to me to turn, and as I covered his mouth and nose with the Chloroform-soaked cloth, his arms gesticulated with a wild flailing and reached back, trying to grab at me. As his breathing quickened, the effects took hold and his involuntary response to the lack of oxygen speeded the process up. I waited until his legs gave way allowing him to fall back on me before clasping both of my hands under his arms, and pulling him into my own car. It had not been the bravest of encounters, there were no gladiatorial stand offs, nor angry exchanges. It had needed to be done and I had accomplished it without him gaining visual access.

As I dragged him headfirst into the room that would be his home for the next few days, his feet drew friction against my pull, his body fighting against me each and every second of the way. I placed him on the floor with careful movements, his awakening would be a shock and the preservation of normality in his body would be the basis of him trusting me. I savoured those moments as I took the clothes from his body in silence, slipping each layer of fabric from him with a tender touch. My only regret about what I had done was that he was not awake during that initial contact. It was the first time that I had seen his flesh, its curvaceous binding to the muscles was somewhat lame now, but the subtle ripples as his limbs moved fascinated me. It still does. The skin moves with each articulation of the body, and movement stirs emotions. I could study his activity with relentless awe and on the night in question, I did. I wish I could have seen his reaction, a soft gaze as he followed my face, studying each and every nuance as my expression changed with each piece of flesh exposed. At least that's how I saw things, but the reality was likely to be at great variance to this. There would be a day when that reaction would come, and it would still be cherished, but I still wish that it had been then.

As I slid the bindings around his wrists, I traced patterns in his upturned palms and followed the lines that indented his skin. The church bells signaled seven outside, and as I attached the chains to both the wrist cuffs and the floor behind him, I had known that he would be conscious in an hour or so. The chains were gathered on the floor on either side of him as he sat propped against the wall, catching the dim light in the centre of the ceiling and refracting odd dots above me. There was sufficient slack on the chains to allow him to sit comfortably and eat, but if he rose to his feet, the chains would provide no movement for his arms, they would always be by his side. I had taken time to ensure that the calculations were correct. He needed to be comfortable, to feel secure without a permanent taughtness and void of other options it had been the best I could come up with.

I left him a tray of food that night, it was within easy reach, and underneath the plate I had slipped a note, typewritten that morning as I had reached my decision.

"Mulder. You will not be harmed whilst you are here. The room is soundproofed so there is no point in wasting your energy by shouting or screaming. There is no reason for you to fight me, nor to distrust me. I will be back in the morning."

I would have liked to have been witness to his initial response, to his realisation that he was naked and restrained. I would see these things eventually, but it is the first reaction to a situation which tells the truth. It is an unreserved and often involuntary array of emotions that are displayed and it stimulates the aggressor in situations such as this. There was no aggression on my part, but my inability to view him weighed heavily on my mind that night as I lay awake in the next room.

 

The next morning was the first on which I visited him with breakfast - a selection of fresh fruit, pastries & bread. He was there for a solitary reason and in order to gain his trust, the most basic of human functions such as eating and defecation required a degree of luxury.

He looked up as I entered the room, not standing as I had thought he would, but sitting in silence watching every step that I made towards him. I placed the tray just out of his reach and pushed it toward him and he grasped at the other end, pulling it in.

"Who are you?" he asked, "why have you done this to me?"

His lips whitened as the top one pressed into his teeth. His anger was evident, his bemusement apparent. I remained silent. I could see each and every part of him through the small holes in the hood that adorned my head and hung level with my shoulders. I stood before him and said nothing, safe in the knowledge that his own vision of me was one of anonymity. The black gown I wore concealed my body shape as it hung loosely. The eyes in the hood were minute, allowing only the pupils of my eyes to be seen. He could see the reflection of the light in the black of my eyes, but no iris, no colour, no definition of any other part of my body, and but for one brief moment, that was how I had wanted it to be. He had not known it, but his future and mine were dependent on the fact that he could not distinguish me despite our previous encounters.

"What are you doing? Why did you take me? Who are you?"

The questions were asked in simplistic yet angry tones, as he picked at a bread roll, washing it down with milk fresh from the carton. He sat with his knees pulled into his chest for that first morning, he had reminded me of a Buddha in meditation, still as the sky with deep intrinsic thoughts emanating from his eyes. He said little to me, which took me by surprise, he just asked simple questions with fervent repetition. I think he believed that I would tire easily and give in to his questions.

'Why me? What am I doing here? Why am I naked?'. Time and again he repeated himself.

As I stood watching him eat, he looked me in the eye, taking little information with him. I had been careful to try the hood again and again to ensure that insufficient information was visible from the other side.

As he finished he pushed the tray back towards me, together with the one from the previous night and as I took them from a safe distance I held out another note. He stood slowly to take it from my arms length, and I vividly remember holding it at just the right distance so that he would have to stretch forward and pull the chains taught. It had been a reminder. It bore no malice, nor pain but it had been a stark reminder nonetheless as the cuffs restrained his wrists. The note reaffirmed that he would not come to any harm, that he would not be hurt and that he would be looked after well and cared for. It provided instructions for when he needed to use the bathroom, which was through a door to the side of the room. He would have to wear a hood, but there would be no humiliation. The note asked for his co-operation, and for him not to fight against anything that was done whilst he remained there, and that should he do so the consequences would be non-consensual and potentially violent in their nature.

How much of the information he took in with the intent with which it was written was unclear, and I suspected from the start that the series of events to follow would turn out to be no more than a major mind fuck on me. He looked up at me once he had read the note and nodded his acknowledgment of its contents. He repeated the questions he had posed previously, but the lack of a response drew him back to his seated position, as I exited the room.

I had expected him to fight, to be more vociferous in his protestations and his repeated questioning had thrown me. In many ways I had wanted him to fight, so that I could take him early on. I knew that the end result might be less pleasing if he were to follow this route, but sheer sight of his naked flesh, and the visions I had of his muscles straining against the bonds made me hard.

Half an hour later I returned with a large bowl of hot water, sponge, soap and towel. I could tell from the stirrings in his face that he was grateful but this subsided to anger when I stopped short of his reach and placed the bowl and accompanying items on the floor. I gestured to his left leg and held the leather cuff in front of me.

"Why should I? When are you going to answer my questions?"

I remained in silence, the only sound to his ears was the slow rise and fall of my chest as I took breath. I pointed to the note which I had allowed him to keep, I would give him many over the course of the next few days and their contents were to stand as affirmation that he would not be harmed.

His chewed on his lip as he looked up, emerald eyes locking with mine in a meeting of minds. He extended both legs outwards towards me and with a gentle, deft touch I tied the binding around his ankle and fastened it to the steel ring on the floor, before repeating the action on his other foot. I allowed him no room for manoeuvre with his legs, I knew that when I started to wash him he would flinch, it would be the first struggle as his body was invaded.

As I walked around him, giving him a wide berth, he pulled at his legs and for the first time I saw panic. It was a joy to behold that he had finally allowed his emotions to spill, he could not have lasted with simple questioning, and although his psychological instinct had told him to remain passive, it could not have prepared him for the realisation that he was going to be touched

"Come on! Talk to me. What are you doing? Why me?"

And still I made no noise.

I handcuffed his arms together from behind as he pulled at his legs, but he gained no movement from them, he had no ability to turn. I removed the chains from the leather cuffs on his wrists and pushed him back a little so that he could take the weight of his upright body on his hands. As I backed away his eyes pierced through the thick black cotton that covered my face and bore deep into my eyes. I was hard, and ached for release, but it was not my time. That would come later.

His muscles were tense as I took the wet sponge and started washing his back. My touch was soft, I had practiced well and soothed each and every muscle in his shoulders and back. As I sponged his chest my cock was near to release without the touch of flesh against it. I could feel the veins in my head and neck pulsating as I took his own flaccid cock in my hands and gently sponged soap over its head, allowing it to trickle down on his balls, and took delight as it twitched in my hand. I looked up to his face to see his eyes shut tight.

"Please, don't. Please get the fuck away from me." His words held more anger with each sentence and increased slowly in volume, and firmly in tone.

"Stop. Get the fuck off me. What are you doing? Why are you doing this?"

And still I made no noise.

As I moved down to his legs I allowed myself a stroke of the soft mousy hair that pointed towards his feet. It was slight, it was almost not really there, and my cock rubbed against my cotton covering as I sponged the delicate skin at the top inside of his legs.

I repeated the tour of his body patting on each and every part with a towel to dry him. As I crouched before him holding out a hood of his own, I thought I saw the panic return to his eyes. I had been gentle, and he was now cleansed, but I think he knew what was next.

"Why?" he asked "they'll be looking for me. Why are you doing this?"

My response was fairly standardised by that point.

I pulled the hood over his face, and pulled the drawstring taught around his neck. It was not as tight as perhaps he had feared, but he could no longer see my movements, nor my face as I took my own mask off and knelt in the gap between his legs. At first I had wanted to take his cock in my mouth straight away, but it was about restraint on my part and as I licked at each of his hardened nipples I rejoiced inside as he arched his back and tried to move away from me.

"Fuck off. Leave me alone." He rocked on his hands in a vain attempt to back away as I allowed my teeth to catch his nipple.

"I said fuck off. Please, stop. Don't do this."

Mulder's protestations were continual at the start, I think deep down he knew that they would be ineffectual, and as I continued to lick his flesh there was a degree of resignation in the rate and tone of questions. I could have gagged him, the additional restraint would have been easy but I needed to hear each sound, each thought, and each reaction. As I pulled his hands in towards his lower back from my kneeling position in front of him, and pushed his chest with my outstretched palm he gasped, falling back into a horizontal position. With his bound hands beneath him he had been rendered immobile, and as I took his balls in the palm of my hand, his questions subsided to a whisper dispersed with sobs.

"No, please stop. Don't do this."

I do not know whether tears rolled down his cheeks as I took his cock in my mouth and sucked it to full erection. The hood he wore was essential to my anonymity, but it added a sensory deprivation to the proceedings, and I knew his body's response would be forthcoming. As I worked I allowed my hands to wander, to touch, to add to his experience and only when he was close to climax did I withdraw my mouth and sit back to admire his beautiful state.

His chest rose and fell in quick succession, his breathing laboured and his sobs now audible. I massaged his thighs, maintaining a constant eye on his head, as he moved it from side to side in response to my touch. I noted each nuance in his reactions, and returned to the areas where his involuntary sighs had been most prevalent.

I continued with that ritual for nearly an hour, allowing him to come close, only to deny him at the last moment and I knew that his release would be the more intense for my patience. During that hour I longed to invade him, to bring my own cock out and tease his body with my hard pulsating flesh. As I pumped him with my hand and allowed him to come, my own body screamed inextricably for attention. And with a silence that I thought was beyond me, I lifted my own clothing, sat back from his body and finished myself, the sight of spilled semen dripping from his stomach giving me instant release.

His sobbing was quiet, but sufficient to mask my masturbation and as I brushed my robe against my body to absorb the seepage he lay motionless, but I knew that tears had been shed. I knelt between his knees once more, and licked at the semen that remained on him. For five glorious minutes I took slow and tender licks with my tongue, cleansing his body. All the time he lay paralysed, responding only when his body defied his mind, and I knew from that point onwards, it would be easier.

When I had changed robes, and put my own hood on again, I returned him to the less restrained position where he could move with relative ease if he remained seated. His legs were free once more, and as I removed his hood, he simply hung his head. There were no questions, no eye contact this time, just closed eyes buried into his knees, as he pulled them into his chest.

I look back now and am still uncertain of what he was thinking at that particular moment. It was the removal of the mask that exposed him even more than the act of release had done, because his expressions were then visible. It was either shame or guilt that lay in those eyes, but I was not sure which, and I am still not sure now. I know that I will have the opportunity to ask him one day, and that day now looms. I have waited with longing, with urgency on occasion but have never succumbed to my desire to let him know the truth until now.

That second evening, he remained in his adopted upright foetal position as I took his dinner to him. He looked up at me in silence, maybe playing me at my own game. The last note that I left asked him to be accepting of his sexuality, of his own needs. I told him that I had Emailed his place of work, from his laptop that I had brought with me, advising them of an unplanned absence and for them to phone him at the weekend. The absence of names was intentional, there were only so many people that knew he worked with Scully and if it all backfired I did not want the pair of them after me. I did not wait for him to read the note, some reactions were meant to be private even in the depraved world that I had created for him, and as he mused over the absence of anyone searching for him, he did it in peace.

********************************************************

At the start of the second full day Mulder's questions returned. I did not know whether he had slept much, I had left blankets and pillows for him, as much luxury as his confines would allow. I had switched the lights off an hour after leaving his dinner the night before, reducing the windowless white room to a dark mass void of any shadow.

I washed him every day, in exactly the same way as I had done on the first and he came to accept not only that it would be done but that it would be gentle and refreshing for his body. The questions did not relent, though, as each day passed his tones had changed. I detected more acceptance on his part, and his slant turned over the course of the few days to questioning my reasons rather than my selection of him. My constant reaffirmation in the notes that he would not be harmed seemed to hit home and his panic became more marginal as the days passed.

My recollections of that week have become more vague as the months have passed. The first full day when I took him in my mouth and witnessed his ejaculation in my hand are most vivid. It fulfilled a longing that had lain deep in my body since the moment I was first assigned to partner him, one that had grown with each meeting since despite our gradual parting to separate sides of the spectrum. Each day now fades into the next, all I recall is that I repeated the previous days actions but added more. The only real recollections for me are of the first time, the blowjob I gave him on the fourth day could have been the one where he was hard before I even took him in my mouth. But then that could have been the fifth day. The only one I really recall is the first.

Each new exploration of his body brought fear for the first few days, but by the fourth, there was a marked change in his reaction. He no longer asked questions but stayed as silent as I. It could have been a major mind fuck that he was trying to pull on me, but it felt as though his demons had been exorcised and there was faint recognition of my actions. I do not think he has ever truly understood why I did what I did but maybe now I will have the opportunity to explain to him. I think sufficient time has elapsed for him to listen without questioning, without interruption.

The second day was difficult for me because I knew that he would hurt physically during my interference with his body. As I rubbed ice cubes around his hard nipples he fought against his restraints, unaware in his hooded blackened world of what was to come. As I pinched the flesh of his left nipple as hard as I could and made the first incision through the soft skin he screamed. It was the only time that he did and I know it was born of pure pain. I was under no illusion as I threaded the metal ring through his flesh, sealing it with industrial strength adhesive. The token I had given him would remain, it would not be removed unless by boltcutters or the tearing of flesh. It would be lasting testament to out time together and when he finally found me, I wanted to know whether he had kept it, or whether he had found the courage to remove it.

As I attached a chain to the nipple ring, and tethered him to the wall he voiced his derision at my actions.

"You fucking bastard. You said you weren't going to hurt me!"

As I removed his hood I saw blood on his lip, and exited the room to find some antiseptic gel. As I bent down before him and squeezed the tube, our eyes met and locked. His jaw was tight, his lips nearly white and as I held my index finger near to his mouth, his lips parted. Our eyes remained fixated as I gently allowed my finger to rub along the length of his lower lip, and as I hesitated I wondered whether he could tell that beneath my mask I was smiling. The application of that gel was the slowest, most succulent moment I can remember, as my cock hardened with a rapidity reserved usually for more violent and rough associations. His eyes asked a thousand questions, spoke a thousand words, and each second a thousand electrical volts emanated from his eyes, to his lips, to my finger and down into my cock.

That evening he was restrained not by the wrist cuffs, but by the ankles. I afforded him some movement with the chains, safe in the knowledge that any jolt or friction to the chain that was attached to his nipple would send searing pain into his body. The nipple chain was now the only restraint on his upper body, but its sensuous connection to his body ensured that he would not move quickly, nor extensively. In the note that accompanied dinner, I apologised for any pain that he may have suffered, but that it was a necessary part of what he was learning about himself. There would be no more such suffering, only pleasure, and only his pleasure. The ring would allow him greater freedom of movement for the next few days.

On each occasion that I left him a note, I made sure that reference was made to his release. He knew he was there only for a few days, that his work colleagues would contact him at the weekend, and it was essential to me that he could see an end to the captivity. It made his co-operation more forthcoming and combined with the emphasis that I placed on the fact that he would not be hurt, brought resignation. I wanted so desperately for him to be submissive, to enjoy the experience but his reticence remained until the fourth full day. Perhaps it had been the activities that had led him to allow his emotions to spill.

Again, I don't recall the successive intrusions into his rectum with my tongue, but the initial response that his body afforded me was one of exuberation. He had clearly had no such previous experience, and was, I think, taken with the pure pleasure that I extrapolated from him with the continual and loving probe of warm flesh. I had secured him on his stomach, with arms and legs spread wide, chained securely at close quarters to the metal rings on the floor. His stomach was off the floor, propped up by a pillow, and as I kissed at his entrance, his body shuddered. In my mind it was an expression of anticipation, of longing, of urgency, but I knew from the fear in his voice that it was merely an attempt at rejecting my actions. As I invaded him, pushing into the tight warm flesh with my tongue, I rhythmically pumped his own cock which had hardened in my hand.

His own reactions to my touch by that time were becoming more apparent to me, he needed little encouragement to become erect, and it was as if he knew that each and every visit that I paid to the room would end in him climaxing. His body was tuning in to its own needs, and the physical pleasure I was giving him, began to outweigh the psychological torment that had been so prevalent when he arrived.

As he came, my own cock strained, needing release, but I was careful not to let it come into contact with his skin. I wanted him to know that what I was doing was for him, and for him only. If I let that veil slip then the trust might have disappeared. It was to be saved for the final day, for the only consummation that we were to have.

That night I didn't leave him a note when I took his dinner into the room. It was my landmark mind fuck with him, at least it was until the final day. Its absence caused a quizzical expression in his face, but he said nothing. Neither did I. I think by that point the only two questions he had were obvious. He wanted to know who I was, and why I was doing what I was doing. The answer to the first could have been so easily given by the removal of my mask, or his hood, one of which was present at all times. My attire remained for all but the last day of his time there, and gave him no indication whatsoever of my identity. The second question was more difficult to answer, and the truth was that it was the only way I could think of getting him into a relationship with me voluntarily. Had he know who I was, he would have run a mile or killed me. He had no expression of his sexual drive other than masturbation to heterosexual videos, let alone admittance of his homosexual tendencies. It was the only way I could think of doing this.

 

I had planned to keep him there for a full week, but by the fifth day there was no resistance or fear in his face. It could have been the absence of a note the previous night that led him to conclude the course of events, and I like to think that the daily rituals were becoming almost expected for his part. He knew by day five that he would be washed, he would be given a blowjob, he would be rimmed, and that there would be something else added to the portfolio. His days at the start had been largely solitary, but as each passed, there were more visits and, during the times between, he often slept. I think that by day five he knew what would ultimately happen, and that everything up to that point was preparation. I think that his demons were close to exorcision, and that the apprehension he displayed when he saw the lubrication I brought with me was only minor. It seemed to be but a flash across his face.

I took my time with him that day, massaging each part of his body in silence, hovering intently around his opening but delaying my intrusion on several occasions. Each act was carried out in strict order, so by the time I finally inserted a finger in him, he had come twice already that day. As I stroked inside of him, feeling around the soft tight flesh, he tensed around my fingers. At first trying to push my digit out, but then adjusting, trying to clamp around it. As I withdrew it and inserted two fingers together, the same reaction came. His body arched as I stroked at his prostate and moved my fingers around, trying to gauge the motion that gave him most satisfaction. He cock was solid beneath him, and the sobs that had been so evident at the start of the week were now groans and gasps as I moved my fingers inside him.

As at the start with the blowjob, I brought him close to climax before withdrawing and massaged his body before starting again. His groans with each invasion grew more distinct, more audible, and as I took his cock I co-ordinated the movement of both hands together. His body shuddered and we came almost instantaneously, the powerful movement of his muscles bringing my own cock to an involuntary release. I looked down at the damp seeping through my cotton robe, and at him, and realised that I had brought him to such ecstasy that he had failed to notice my own murmuring as my semen hit the robe and my leg muscles contracted in spasms.

I knelt there patting at my own body, disguising the noise with further massaging of his thighs as his breathing slowed down a little, and returned to its normal pattern. My own breathing was heavy, but it was silent. As was I.

Again, I left no note that night. I had intended to do so three times a day, but I think that their absence had triggered him into resolving the issues that raged in his mind. If I had told what each day would hold, he would have been prepared, his responses planned. Sometimes, more is said without words than with. I wanted it to be that way with him, so that each look I stole when we met after this would give me distinct memories of his responses here. I knew we would meet on occasion, we always did, but whether he would ever be able to read my eyes when we did, fed me with fire. The thought provided erotic responses in me that were now becoming more urgent as the final day loomed.

**********************************************************

On the sixth day, after revisiting acts of the previous days, I walked into the room late in the afternoon to a look of amazement on his face. He rose to his feet instantly, holding the chain to his nipple taught against the wall so that he did not move further than it would allow. The redness around his nipple had subsided, I had not touched it since I had pierced it, and I had left the antiseptic permanently by his side so that he could apply it as and when he saw fit.

By late afternoon I had brought him to climax three times that day, and as I stood before him, with only my hood, and a pair of plain white boxers on, he stared intently at my body moving his gaze slowly around. His eyes piercing each and every pore of my skin. I had endured my own pain preparation for this, in waxing the hair from my body. The anonymity had been maintained, exactly as planned, and for him to glimpse even the colour or profusion of my body hair at this stage would narrow the parameters should he seek retribution. It was not a risk that I was willing to take.

He said nothing, but covered each part of my body with his emerald eyes, pausing noticeably at the four-inch scar on my abdomen. This was my mind fuck to end all others. It was major, it was the only issue of identity, and he took it in, his mind ticking as his eyes stared. I threw his hood to him, and as his eyes disappeared into darkness, they still gorged deep into my scar.

For the first time that week I turned him around to face the wall, in the knowledge that he knew something. I had given him a snippet of me, a memory to take with him and as I lay him on his stomach, with hands cuffed behind his back - I wished with sincerity unbecoming of me, that he was not restrained. I had given serious consideration to allowing him freedom of movement that morning, but despite the pleasure he now exuded when we bonded, I could not take the risk. As I pushed the pillow beneath him, and checked on the taughtness of the drawstring in his hood, I removed my own mask and sat astride him contemplating the moment I had dreamt of for so long.

As I pushed the tip of my cock into him, his muscles contracted around me and he gasped. I sat motionless allowing him to adjust to the invasion. When his muscles relaxed, I edged in further, and stopped again. Each pause gave him time to accept, to allow me further and further inside. When my balls rubbed against his skin, I withdrew in one slow lingering motion before pushing in again, in an equally slow demonstration of control. As I rocked, I held his stomach pulling him into me, and felt his hard cock touch against my arm with the rhythm.

I had waited for the moment for so long, had dreamt of the feelings of release for what seemed like an eternity, and I knew that my restraint would be difficult. He encompassed me with warm tight flesh, and as I stroked at his prostate with each movement, he groaned. He did not exhale a single word that day, but the fervor of the noises that emanated from his throat needed no coherence. There were no cherished whispers, or calls to stop, only the deep murmuring of a man who has discovered himself.

As he came, his semen spurted onto the back of my hand, which still lay flat against his stomach, holding his body against my own. The contraction of his muscles around my cock brought me to instant climax and as I came, each movement of my cock brought rasps form deep within him. My semen swirled inside, and I could feel the warmth of it around my own cock with each spasm. My breathing was more heavy than it had been previously but still I made no noise, no gasps nor cries and this restraint was for me more difficult than any he had endured during the days he had been there.

As I withdrew, I left him on the floor and exited the room. When I returned fifteen minutes later, he lay in peace and made no effort to speak or gesture, but allowed me to clean him up. I think it was from that point onwards I truly believed I had succeeded, in the most basic sense. I had of course planned to fuck him, but what I wanted and seemed to achieve was so much more.

As he lay there, and allowed me to remove his mask, his eyes flicked upward to see whether I was willing to expose myself. When his eyes met with my hood he seemed to be disappointed; maybe he was expecting more from me. I knew that the demons were gone and that at the very least he had a better knowledge of his own body, but whether he would have the courage to take it with him when he left was another matter.

That evening I left him a note. There were so many things that I wanted to say to him, but each word that I gave him would become a clue to my identity and I didn't want it that way. I wanted him to find out for himself. The note simply read, 'You will be released first thing tomorrow. We will meet again'. He read it and smiled. I think it was the first time I saw him smile.

 

The next morning, after he had eaten his breakfast, I took the clothes he had arrived in into the room and placed them out of reach on the floor beside me. He stood up as soon as he saw them and realised that each of the promises I had made had been kept. He had not been harmed, and he was being freed. I still believe that sticking to those words has shown him that I can, on occasion, be trusted. Maybe he will come to learn that with the passing of time.

I offered the chloroform and cloth to him, but his hands did not waver, he simply gave a shake of the head. I suppose it was asking too much of him really. I pushed down on his shoulders for him to sit on the floor and, as he did, I covered his mouth and nose from behind, and waited for his body to go limp. As it did, I laid him on the floor, and began to remove each of the bindings from his body, the only exception being the ring that adorned his nipple. That would remain. It would remind him when he awoke that it had not been a dream, that what had happened was reality, and that he needed to form some sort of conclusion from its presence.

I dressed him with the tenderness and affection I had shown him at the start and made sure that each article of clothing was clean, was ironed and was neatly fitted on his body. As I pulled him over my shoulder, and cautiously made my way to the car in the adjacent garage, I felt reluctance in allowing him to go. I had known that the time would come, but it did not stop me from hesitating as I opened the car door.

I returned him to the car park, yards from where it had all begun, and lay him in the back seat of his car, with his laptop on the passenger seat and the keys to his car and his apartment on his chest. I did not wait for him to awake, I knew that his first reaction would be to look around, and as I drove away, a part of me was filled with sorrow, the rest with the anticipation of when I would meet with Mulder again.

 

When I awoke this morning I could not have known what the day would hold. For 18 months I had thought each and every day of the man for whom I had such longing. I moved in the same circles as previously and took delight when I heard from others that Mulder was out and about in the same joints. It was pure luck that we did not bump into each other, but over the months I came to learn from others that he was no longer so covert about his sexuality. I don't think he ever admitted it to the Bureau or even told Scully of his outside interests, he simply keeps himself to himself and for eighteen months that seemed to involve sleeping around the homosexual community as much as possible. I learnt with some surprise that three of my own partners had slept with him, one making reference to Mulder's disappointment when he had undressed. It was at that point I knew it was all falling into place.

When I arrived in the warehouse this afternoon, I had believed that the covert nature of my activity, the murder of the Doctor who had betrayed CSM, was mine and mine alone. As I entered the building, and moved with stealth towards the man who stood in the middle office, I passed a pillar that by rights should have been mine to hide behind.

Although my weapon was drawn and by my side, the swift crack of knuckles to my nose took me so much by surprise that the weapon drifted from my hand to the floor, and as I fell backward, the world moved in slow motion. The heavy metallic thud as my gun hit the concrete floor echoed around my head, and as I pushed my hands out behind me to break the fall, the face that looked down upon me, the person whose arm retracted back from me, came into focus. Mulder. As my hand made contact with the concrete and I fell onto my side, only one thought was prevalent.

"Krycek, you bastard. Hold it right there, or I swear I will shoot through your fucking brains!"

At that point my mind was still a haze from the connection he had made with his fist, and I struggled to make sense of how to deal with it. As I stood up, our eyes locked, and for me the world spun in restricted time once more. I moved towards him, edging closer to the gun that remained trained on my chest. The safety was off, I had heard it click as I fell and realised that my options were limited. As I began to turn my back to him, he started up again.

"Krycek, stop there or I will shoot. I don't need a reason to."

"In the back?" I asked as I stood facing the entrance to the building. "You will not shoot me in the back Mulder, they would hang you for it."

As the words registered, I drew my knife from inside my jacket and flicked it open, edging step by step back towards him. As I came within his grasp I offered it to him, my arm reaching up so that the knife was just visible and as he leant forward with one hand to take it from me, my other elbow moved swiftly back into his ribcage. The blow was not hard, nor did it pack the venom that so many prior to it had, but his gun fell to the floor. It landed in front of where I stood and I kicked it away with my foot.

I am not sure whether he considered taking the knife to be an error on his part, or whether he was just fearful that I would escape his grasp, but he called to Scully, and I heard footsteps coming at speed from behind us. They were distant at first, I think that she must have been across the warehouse, awaiting my entrance at the other door. I was just glad that I had come in through the front.

As the footsteps quickened and drew near, I turned my head to the side and caught a flash of light against the blade as Mulder held it out to his side. As I turned towards him I caught hold of his wrist, and turned to meet his face.

"You're losing it Mulder." As our eyes met once more I smiled and I knew that my time had come.

He pulled at his wrist, and simultaneously connected his other fist with the side of my face. I reeled back a little but my entire focus was upon his other hand as he clung to the handle of the knife. As Scully neared, her weapon was not aimed; Mulder and I became inextricably linked together, a mass of limbs and she could not distinguish one body from the other as we struggled.

With my back pressing into his chest, I was powered by nothing but my sexual need as I brought the knife down past my side and drove it deep into my stomach. His hand was still clenched firmly around the handle as the tip of the blade made its incision through my white T-shirt and slid through the skin below. His hand seemed to loosen as I drew the knife out and let go of his wrist.

Those first few seconds seemed to swim, as I stumbled back towards him not knowing where he or Scully stood. I looked down at myself and saw the blood absorbing into the fine white cotton that clung to my body and put my hand to it. The pain rasped through me, my legs buckling under the weight of my body and as I fell back, my arms reached out to the floor. I tried to stand up, but I could feel my heart racing and with each beat the warmth of blood on my skin made me weaker. As I rested my head back to the floor I looked at Mulder standing in front of me, holding the knife out, his eyes alternating between the blade and my stomach.

Scully had not seen me control Mulder's hand as the knife went into my body, and as he knelt down at the side of me, a dark celebratory look crossed her face. I think she was smiling. He held his hand over my T-shirt and pressed on the wound, looking up at my face as I struggled for breath. My chest rose and fell in quick succession and as Mulder kept his hand tight into the wound I could feel the blood against his palm with each and every beat of my heart.

"Scully?" he turned to where she stood, to her blank expression, to the torment I had brought to her life that was now etched in the emotions across her face.

"Mulder, I say leave him here." Her tone was dull, even as she looked at my face and I met her eyes, she gave me no absolution for my sins. The cold blue eyes did not move once, and as her gaze remained constant, I closed my eyes to her.

"Shit." Mulder was undecided but seemed to be coming down on her side. He took his hand from my chest, and wiped the blood on his jacket. The lack of pressure increased the flow of blood from the wound, and I looked into Mulder's eyes, each beat of my heart calling to him.

As he leant back on his haunches, my breathing became more laboured, and I tilted my head to the side closing my eyes once more. The wound itself was not life threatening, but the loss of blood would be if the flow was not stemmed and I could feel myself slipping gradually into darkness.

There was a silence that lasted for about twenty seconds. It was hard to tell the exact length given my condition, but I know that Mulder removed his jacket, and as I heard him doing so, I opened my eyes and looked up at him, my mouth open, my breathing irregular. As he scrunched his jacket into a ball, my breathing slowed a little, may be it was fate, may be it was luck, I didn't know and I haven't had enough time to consider it in great depth yet.

He lifted my blood sodden T-shirt and pushed it up my chest. He wiped his jacket across my skin to clear the blood from the wound, from my torso, and as he did I stared deep into his eyes. Of all the moments in my life, that one might be the most recent but it is the slowest, most euphoric feeling I believe I have ever encountered He looked first at the wound, and then at the four inch scar to the side of it. His hand froze, his body paralysed as he stared and the only glimpse of movement was in his mouth, as his lips parted.

As his eyes covered every inch of my scar, I waited patiently for them to meet with mine, and when they did, time stood still. My lips turned upwards at the edges, and as he struggled to acknowledge the information presented to him, I smiled. I looked deep into his eyes and smiled. I lifted my hand to the bottom of his shirt and lifted it up, and looked from my horizontal position at the metal ring through his nipple. I returned my gaze to his eyes and smiled once more, before allowing my hand to fall to the floor.

It was a moment I had sought for many months and he too, but his search had been misguided. What he wanted had been there all along, he just hadn't know where to look for it, and as I lie beneath him now, drifting in and out of consciousness, I hope that he has found the answers he was looking for. He has said nothing yet, his mouth is still open, his jacket pressed deep into my wound with urgency that was not present two minutes ago. Scully is on the phone, calling for an ambulance and above me is the greatest challenge I have ever had in my life.

His eyes keep alternating between my eyes and my wound, but as I lie here and his free hand strokes at my face, I know that the pleasure was all his, but that it will now be mine as well.

 

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Anonymity II  
Author - Lush Virtues (Andrea)  
Rating - NC17 for m/m sex some non-con & language  
Category - Story, Angst  
Keywords - slash story  
Pairing - Mulder / Krycek  
Spoilers - none  
Feedback - go on, you know you should ;)   
Other fiction at http://www.akalush.net  
Disclaimer - Is CC still claiming they are his?  
Archive - Of course. Just let me know.  
Summary - Abduction with a twist. Mulder POV on Anonymity & beyond. If you've read Anonymity you'll know where the first bit is heading. Should read OK as a stand alone.  
Author notes - music is my other inspiration - and singing for me this time were Som Wardner and Matt Bellamy. Beta thanks always seem to go last on these things, but saving the best & all that ;) Bertina, thanks again, beyond the call of duty on this one. Your enthusiasm for all things XF & smut is infectious & I love you for it.

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Anonymity II

I never knew when it would happen, only that it would, and despite the number of times I have enacted the scenario out in my head, this ending was the one I never saw coming. The truth I strove to reveal, the sense of realism and reason that I wanted to bring into my life has consumed me for 18 months, and now that I have the answers, they beggar belief. The eyes that confirmed my truth were distant, yet now their depth of passion haunts me.

I have not told my story, not to Scully. It remains a private part of me that I have come to cherish yet hate with equal enthusiasm and disdain, and the side upon which I fall changes regularly with no apparent reason. The things that happened to me were personal, private and despite their unlawfulness in origin, I have never reported the crimes. They defied categorisation and classification, and with my existing reputation, would have done little to service any advancement in the Bureau, if any were ever likely. I mean, who would have taken what I said seriously?

                

It started on a dark night eighteen months ago, when I left the office and headed for home. I made my way from the lift to the car, and was attacked from behind - it was neither malicious nor brutal, but it was forceful. The cloth that covered my nose and mouth was held in place with a strong hand, and as my eyes blinked, I remember looking down at the fingers and thinking how full of intent my assailant must be. He had approached from behind, and was hidden out of sight, but the swiftness of his approach and the way in which he immobilised me was, now that I think of it, the sign of a professional. At the time, I had too much to contend with to notice, but now that I know - it seems obvious.

My next memory is of waking, with a thick head, in a state of complete undress. Leather cuffs were bound tightly around my wrists, which were in turn held to the floor by lengths of chain. The first coherent thought was of air against skin, and then of panic. I moved back against the wall and pulled at the chains, assessing their length, assessing my movement, somehow thinking that the longer the chains were, the happier I would be. I looked around the room, but saw nothing. Whitewashed walls, no windows, no fixtures, no fittings at least not in the conventional sense - the sole distinguishable feature was a door, just the one. Behind me and beneath me, an assortment of wrought iron rings rigid in the floor and wall. A tray of food lay in front of me, and when I reached forward, the chains pulled tight against me, a demonstration of the extent of my restraint. At least that's how I saw it.

I don't think that at that stage I truly comprehended what was going on. My initial panic stemmed from not knowing where I was, who had taken me or why. Thoughts of Bureau cases flooded through my mind, each becoming a possibility. Years of convictions, leading to numerous prison sentences, each varying from the others, and the realisation that any one of these people could now be free and in the mood for revenge. Extensive psychological training should have given me something, but the humiliation of my naked form overwhelmed me and I simply sat back against the wall, with my knees drawn into my chest. It was a primitive defence, coarse in its style but it was all I could do.

Upon the tray lay an assortment of fruit, fresh milk, and cold meat. I picked at bits of it, not knowing when I would eat again. First rule of survival under capture - eat whatever you can when it is given to you, you never know when the opportunity will arise again. And I tried. God only knows I tried, but the effects of whatever had been used to knock me out, still clung to my veins, to my body and I had little appetite. Beneath the food, a note was folded and placed neatly. When I unfolded it, I realised that my captor either knew me or knew of me, and although that narrowed the field of possible contenders - it didn't really help as much as I thought it should. When I started to think of all the people I had come into contact with over the years, I realised that even given this knowledge, I was no closer to guessing what was going on.

More than anything I felt like I had been responsible in some way for what had happened. I could have been more alert whilst walking to the car. I did not know whether I had been the subject of surveillance. I was usually good at picking up on things like that, but I realised that I could not remember any specific incident in the previous week with the brevity my situation warranted. I could have been careless, I could have avoided the predicament in which I found myself, but most of all, I just hated the fact that I had been stupid enough to allow it to happen.

That I had been left a note provided little comfort, nor did it answer the questions that raged through my head. There were no 2 way mirrors, there was no way I was being watched, of that much I was certain. And yet whoever was responsible had the forethought to leave a note for when I awoke. I surmised that first night that I would be alone. Whoever was there would have appeared the moment I awoke had they wanted to, and the continued absence of anyone led me to believe that I would be alone. Naked and restrained but alone nevertheless. I had no idea what sort of company the alternative was, and settled quite easily for being alone. It was dark, but I had been fed and the promise of company the following day filled me with dread, fear, and to a lesser extent, intrigue.

                   

I slept little that first night, snatching fractions of sleep whilst propped against the wall, and by the time that door opened I had been awake for what felt like hours. I guessed that it was morning, but the absence of any natural light or a clock made it an arduous task that lasted all the time that I was there. The body settles into repetition when the hours are known, but remove the most basic knowledge and the brain struggles to make sense of time. Without alarm clocks we would wake with the sunrise and sleep with nightfall, it is the body's natural response - but take away those indications and we are lost.

When the door opened, I edged back against the wall, feeling my spine crush into the plaster providing the only defense I could think of. It was scant recompense but one side of me was shielded, and at that point, it was at least something. I looked up at the door opening and he walked across the room to stand before me. I remained where I was, taking each detail in, each and every minute detail. Standing before me was a man, and that was all I knew. It could have been the same one that had jumped me in the car park, I wasn't sure, but it was a man and that was all I knew. He stood out of reach, a loose black cloak covering his entire body. It hung from the shoulders, there was no distinct body shape, just a mass of fabric. If it hadn't been for the anger that was welling inside me I would have laughed. He looked like a cross between a gothic magician and a KKK member, it was almost surreal. The hood that covered his face reached his shoulders, and yet there was nothing to see but the reflection of the lights in the blacks of his eyes. There was no colour, no skin, no features and I could see no emotion nor intent in his face because I could see nothing.

His anonymous presence did nothing to quell my fear, my mind was a mix of what was going on in that room, and of people in my past that could have led me here, that would have reason to. With one eye kept in permanent touch with the light reflecting back at me, I rooted through my history, but even his height was no indication. He could have been skin and bones, he could have been stocky, all I knew was that he was not obese. As for the contour of muscle on bone, I got nothing from my continued glare. He placed the tray in front of me and I reached out, but the chains pulled at my wrists restricting my reach. He pushed the tray towards me and I took it, all the while I maintained permanent contact with the eyes, with the reflection, but there was no movement, no emotion, just a nothingness.

"Who are you?" I asked, "why have you done this to me?"

There was no response. I waited for movement, for a voice, for anything - but there was nothing.

"What are you doing? Why did you take me? Who are you?"

They were basic questions, they almost sound simple looking back, but open questioning was the best means of obtaining information, and I just thought that if he could give me the most basic of information I would work a few things out for myself. But he remained still and silent. I picked at the food he had brought, believing that my own silence might lead him into giving me information, into answering my questions, but he just stood there. I had tried to control my anger; I did not want to agitate anyone in the position I was in. I have worked on too many cases where panic and fear overtake rationality, and in such hostage situations, control of emotions can be the difference between life and death. I was naked and chained, and could do little other than work out where he was coming from, who he was and why he had me.

"Why me? What am I doing here? Why am I naked?" I asked again and again. I thought that my persistence would evoke a response that he would tire of me asking, but he never did. He just watched.

I pushed the tray back towards him once I had finished eating, perhaps I thought that instigating some sort of interaction between the two of us would break the silence but the solitary response was another note that he handed to me. I had to stand to reach for it, covering myself with one hand, reaching out with the other. The chains pulled taught just as I was within distance, and I remember thinking at the time that it was a show of strength. A minor one, but a reminder all the same that I could not touch him.

It became a mind game on that first morning I think. I look back and my recollections of those few days are vivid, but some moments stand out more than others do and that first morning is one. The humiliation of being naked was prevalent, but the restricted movement whilst naked took me to new depths, and the audacity of making me stand and reach for something that was just out of grasp was affirmation for me that this guy knew what he was doing. It was no amateur kidnapping, it was not a chance encounter. He knew exactly what he was doing when those chains went on, and when he made me stand to take the note. And I hated him for it. He left soon after, leaving me with that thought, and nothing else.

He came back some time later, carrying a bowl that he laid on the floor in front of me. I was glad of the opportunity to wash, but there was something wrong. He did not offer it up to me, but laid it out of reach. If I could have seen his eyes, his expression, I would have sworn there was a smile there as he pointed at my leg.

"Why should I? When are you going to answer my questions?" I knew it was futile. If he was going to provide answers he would have done it before, but it was anger at the situation I found myself in that hurt most. That and the thoughts running through my mind. I may have been the virginal mannequin to some, but I kind of knew what was heading my way. Too many sadistic cases, too many porn movies, too much time to think in the last 24 hours. It didn't really matter which. The whole thing just felt wrong.

When he pointed to the note he had given me the night before, it confirmed everything. The words danced before my eyes.

'The consequences will be non-consensual and potentially violent in their nature.'

There was a pause from me then. I think I finally thought that it was possible that I might die there. It might seem surreal now, but my mind was racing then. I nodded and sat down, keeping my eyes on him. There was nothing there but maybe I would find something if I kept trying. It was too early to give up.

It seems a weird thing to say when being reflective, but all the while I watched him move around to secure my ankles, he seemed to glide. I tried to follow with my eyes but it felt like he was everywhere.

"Come on! Talk to me. What are you doing? Why me?" There was not even a flicker of recognition or response to my questions.

He handcuffed my hands behind my back and pushed me back to balance my body weight on them. There were no jerky movements, everything he did seemed to flow, it all seemed to be second nature. It could have been I suppose, but I wasn't really sure who would do such things at will, so regularly that they didn't even need to think about what they were doing. It was like watching a bird, each movement as effortless as the flapping of wings in flight. That someone could be so elegant in such non consensual surroundings angered me and I found myself not wanting to know his identity, but needing to.

I don't know whether it was my insecure persona or the investigative me that needed to know. I looked into his eyes so fiercely that I thought he would give me something back, the emotion I put into the stare warranted it. But he just walked behind me as though nothing mattered. It seemed that what he was doing was routine as he started washing my back. The feeling of being touched so elegantly by a complete stranger, and a man at that, was only the start. I really should have known. I think deep down that I knew what was going to happen, but it is often easier to stack those thoughts at the back of the mind, and hope that their fleeting presence was an illusion. It wasn't really for that moment that I protested, but for where I feared it would end up.

I remember flinching as soon as he touched my cock, feeling the luxurious warmth of soapy water trickling around the head. I flinched because I didn't know who he was. He could have been anyone and the lack of a face, of flesh, helped to put the act into perspective and meant that in some ways he did not repulse me. Maybe it was because I could feel the warm sensations deep inside, attempting to override rationality as my cock twitched in his hands. He could feel it happening, he had wanted it to happen and I was powerless to stop it. He had won.

"Please, don't. Please get the fuck away from me," I pleaded with him, but the iron mask remained.

"Stop. Get the fuck off me. What are you doing? Why are you doing this?" I knew that it wouldn't end here, that it would continue. The warmth and tenderness of his touch was more than I had felt for a long time, but then people have been tortured to death by tender hands. It matters not how light and deft the touch is, ultimately, it's what those hands do that counts, and I suspected that a sponge bath was only the first item on the agenda.

When he pulled a hood over my face and tugged at the drawstring around my neck, I was grateful for the little privacy I had been given. He licked at my nipples and I continued to cry out in protest. I knew it was in vain, that he would not stop, but I thought that if he only knew how much anguish I was suffering at his hands, he might. I don't think I believed for one moment that he would, but it was all I could do to try.

"Fuck off. Leave me alone." I rocked back, trying to escape his mouth around my nipples. "I said fuck off. Please, stop. Don't do this."

When he pushed me onto my back, I remember thinking of all the times I had wanted this to happen. Not blindfolded, not with a man, but just a nice simple bit of domination. I hated myself for giving this man my mental participation, but as he took me into his mouth, my body took little time react. I tried so desperately to put myself somewhere else mentally, and doubled it up with my own verbal reaffirmation.

"No, please stop. Don't do this."

All the time, the moist warmth of his mouth moving along and around me took over and broke my internal restraints, and when I felt myself coming close to giving him what he so obviously wanted, the touch was gone. And he started all over again, only to let his mouth draw back as he felt me near to release. I found myself needing to end it, to give him what he wanted and what I needed so that it could be over. In the end, he finished me off with an ever tightening grip of delicate fingers, although I am embarrassed to say that it didn't really take that long to coax it out of me.

In my personal darkness for those seconds, I was blinded. Even with the hood, I experienced a flash, something. I don't know what. The softness of his tongue on me afterwards, licking at what I had let go, hit me hard. I had never known any act like that to be performed out of hate or humiliation, only out of affection. It puzzled me. As he took my hood off, I knew that my humiliation was complete. I couldn't see his reaction - he had replaced his own mask, and I didn't let my eyes meet with his. I was embarrassed, not for what had happened, but because of my own inability to stop his invasion and to stop my own reaction.

I don't really remember much else that day, I'm not really sure that anything else happened. I just kept thinking back to how I had allowed my body to take over my mind and how, for a fleeting moment, I had not regretted what he was doing. When the note that evening asked me to be accepting of my sexuality, it never really dawned on me the inference he was making. I was more concerned that he had Emailed work on my behalf and had arranged absence for me. With the prospect of no one missing me, I sulked like a baby, curled up against the wall. It was all I could think to do.

                  

I didn't really sleep much that night. I sat huddled against the wall, searching for reflections or movements, anything. I saw nothing. I must have dozed off a couple of times although for minimal periods of time. I don't really know. I was so completely numbed by what had happened, but more so by what lay ahead. I knew that the previous day had been the start, he would not have Emailed my work, nor told me that I would be released if he was going to hold me indefinitely. And that night, all I saw on those walls were shapes that weren't there.

I became resigned to his lack of communication in the end. I kept going, or at least as much as I could will myself to, it was important to do so, in case he broke his vow of silence. Each time he entered the room, I would look up and over to the door in anticipation. For him, the anticipation no doubt lay in what he would do to me that day, although in all that time I never saw him show it. For me, the anticipation was to see whether I would see his face, his body, or hear his voice. Anything. The bare walls provided no comfort and the blackness of the cloth he wore was a stark contrast, but ultimately, neither gave me the visual stimulation I craved.

It was a lesson in basic survival of the soul and I think I was determined to win, I was driven but knew that the one point of failure would be my body. It always had been. The touch of flesh against flesh. It was a basic reaction, but for me, the sensuality had always driven me. He was not to know that the merest touch could ignite warmth, that far from being the male stereotype, I was tender and sought nothing more than contact to arouse me. I put it down to a lack of contact or emotion from my own father, and a deep desire to just be wanted. By anyone. I would never overtly flaunt such inadequacies, but as I sat there, the problem raged inside me.

By the time the needle entered into my nipple, the pain was instantaneous. It was brutal and coarse. I gritted my teeth and tried to remain still, fearing not what he was doing, but the damage I would do to myself if I moved. The ice cube had hurt, had made me back away, but the restraints had been more severe that morning, and I had little room to manoeuvre. I thrashed my head from side to side when the ice cube touched me, but the needle had been different. It had been a warm pain that burnt through each cell of my body. When he threaded the ring through, I clenched my teeth and managed to bite my lip. The warm metallic taste of blood in my mouth. It struck me as ironic. So fucking ironic, but at the same time, it signified the breaking of a promise he had made.

"You fucking bastard. You said you weren't going to hurt me!" My anger was muted by the hood, but became apparent when he took the hood from me. But when he left the room, I feared the worst. It must be some warped individual who abducted to perform body piercing and blowjobs. I watched the door and wondered what else I could add to that list.

When he returned, he stood closer than he had previously. I think he understood the pain that movement caused and I stood holding the chain tightly against the wall, giving myself as much slack as possible. He had a tube of antiseptic in his hand, and when he brought his finger up to my face, I stared at the reflections of the lights. It was a mind game, a bad one. He rubbed his finger along my lip and I let him. I was caught in a gaze that I could not fathom, that I could not really see and I sensed that the man who would harm me, would heal me too.

The only saving grace that night was that there were no restraints around my wrists. I lay down and held the chain tightly against the wall, allowing myself to lie in relative comfort as long as I didn't move. It was a long uncomfortable night. Each time I turned, my chest burned and woke me. I would look around in the darkness, not knowing how long I had been asleep, or how long I would have until he returned again. He had said in his note last night that I needed to find out about myself. The funny thing is that I think by then I was starting to get an idea, as I rubbed the antiseptic gel on my nipple and turned the ring.

The following day he seemed more cautious when he came into the room. I sat before him with chain gathered in front of my chest and he seemed to stall momentarily. At the time, I remember being uncertain as to why. It signaled either further suffering, which I feared most, or guilt at the discomfort that must have been imprinted on my face. Either way, that beat in his step had been the first thing he had given me. I had hoped it to be the latter of the two options, but as the day went on, I guessed that it had been the former.

He had washed me in the same way each day by then, taking no apparent pleasure as he forced a reaction from me, taking his time and playing on each movement I made. I was still embarrassed that I had so little control over myself and that each time he placed that hood over me, the removal of one sense just stimulated my reaction to his touch. Each connection of his flesh with mine was unanticipated and the not knowing but simply reacting was hard to control. I tried to block it out, to see though the darkness and take myself off somewhere, but he would pick another spot, one more tender and responsive than the last.

When he turned me over that day and propped me up with a pillow, I thought I knew what was coming and prepared mentally, if one ever can, for what I would have described at the time as rape. I was firm in my head on the point, and knew that physical resistance would be futile. I was in no position to fight against whatever he did, but mental preparation might resolve the emotional scars. But when he finally made contact, it was with his mouth.

I had been expecting to be split, to be torn and to be ravaged, and the warmth and flexibility of the flesh that probed into me drew involuntary pleasure, it was nothing more than a physical reaction to what was being done. There was no mental willingness on my part, and I tried to protest verbally, but my words were turned into nothing more than noises from deep within my throat as the physical and emotional waged war against each other. The combination of the attention his tongue gave in rhythm with his hand on my cock, broke me. In every way. It was the moment when I could no longer reconcile my rejections and my pleasure. The two were at odds with each other. I was tiring with the continual mental resistance, and finding myself slipping so easily into a darker, more accepting state.

When dinner arrived there was no note. I had almost come to anticipate their presentation to me, it was the only form of communication that he seemed to be willing to give, and each new note bore new words. The themes were the same but the words were always different. I sat in darkness propped up against the wall and mused about what would be next. I felt my cock becoming hard and was ashamed of myself for slipping like that with no physical contact. My only company was the thoughts that raged through my mind, twisting and churning what lay deeply hidden, eliciting it from the its resting place. That night was my turning point. It was a lonely sombre experience filled with self-loathing at how weak willed I had become. I was pensive most of that night, propped against the wall once more, unwilling to allow myself the luxury of complete rest.

By the time he appeared the next morning, I think I had finally begun to see what was going on. The snatches of sleep I had taken during the day allowed my thoughts to drift in the darkness. The continuity of everything he did adjusted my body to a state where I expected him to suck me off first thing as he bathed me. I knew it was coming, and the certainty of the occasion meant that by the time he walked in that morning, I was already hard. There was little I could do, the more I tried not to think about it, the more his actions weighed heavily on my mind.

The more I tried to convince myself that what I felt was wrong, the more I wondered about the man who was doing this to me, and his reasoning. There were no threats, no ransoms demanded, it was almost a reflection of an abduction. Apart from the restraint and lack of communication, I was being treated to erotic thrills which at that point in my life were unimaginable to me, even in a mutual relationship. I was being well fed, pampered physically and as he stood before me with a tube of lube that morning, for the first time since my arrival, I felt no fear.

He must have known I was not gay, he must have done his research - so why was it me that he chose and why was my body overtaking my mind and allowing the physical pleasure to win over? I don't think I ever truly answered that question. As the luxury of each encounter ensued with marginal protestation from me, I began to think that maybe he had seen something in me that no one else had. Maybe even me. And I found myself believing that the trouble he had gone to with the whole charade must mean that in some ways, he wanted me to be his, that he needed rewarding.

There was an initial pain as he pushed his lubed fingers into me, edging past my tight ring of muscle, but when he teased inside of me and tenderly allowed his fingers to move over my prostate, I felt nothing but bliss. I was hard again. There was no brutality to his invasion, just tender soft strokes and touches that melted me. It was never like that in the movies. My world was full of screen stars with exotic names shamefully parading for the camera, and I don't think I ever once saw a film where the woman exhibited the pleasure I derived from those soft fingers. Not honestly at least. Despite the previous orgasms of that day, I still had little control over myself as he quickened his strokes and took my own cock in his hand and pumped at it with perfect rhythm. He didn't skip a beat. Not once. I came in his hands, feeling my muscles contract around his fingers, pulling at them, willing them. That I had been wishing it had been his cock was a thought that remained mine and mine alone, I had tried to be quiet, and not let go, but I had failed in some respects. My gasps and groans were audible, and though he never said as much nor acknowledged it, I know that he heard them all. He thrived on them, and in some way that I could not explain, it had started to make me feel wanted.

                  

The following day is the one that has loomed large in my life for the last 18 months, more in reverie at what I had and then lost, than at what I felt at the beginning. My hate and anger had dissipated over the past few days, eroded by the touch of a man who chose to hide himself from my gaze, never giving me the satisfaction of meeting him eye to eye. By that final day, I am not really sure what I would have said anyway. Words seemed inadequate when all that had been done to me was based on touch alone. I think that by that stage, the only thing I could think to ask was 'Who?' - but even that word seemed best left unasked.

When he entered the room that afternoon, I stood in awe at the sight before my eyes, and shifted my gaze to cover each and every piece of his flesh. The hood was still there but the robes were gone - replaced by a pair of white boxers, and before me - presented for my pleasure maybe - an array of smooth hairless flesh that curved around his muscles with a taughtness that defined each and every shape. I drank in that view not wanting it to end, memorising as much as possible in the short time he afforded it to me. I should have reverted back to my investigative state and made mental measurements of limbs and notations of structure, but I found myself just staring. His torso was solid, not an ounce of flesh that was not toned, and when my eyes rested upon the scar that crossed his abdomen I wanted to touch it, to touch him, to feel the soft flesh that had tormented me in its absence.

Once I stopped at his scar, I found that I couldn't move on, its uniqueness mesmerised me and told me that the scar was him, it gave me a key with which to unlock the future. If I found that scar again, I found him and if I found him, then maybe he would explain. As he threw me my hood, I continued to look, not giving an inch, even as the darkness fell upon me, and took me to what I knew would be his finale.

It was the one thing I had thought about the previous night. There had been no note; it didn't really need explaining. I was adjusting to his intrusions and the rimming and the fingers had been nothing but foreplay. The longest foreplay in history. So when I felt the blunt end of his cock nudging inside of me, I think I was mentally prepared for what was to come. It is difficult to justify such acceptance given that I was still being held against my will, but given the delicate touch he had shown me, when leading me into the unknown - I somehow knew that it would not be a forced or a rough encounter. That I had secretly wanted him to do it the previous day had taught me a lot about myself. About what I had needed rather than wanted, and that maybe he had just known. When he held my stomach and pushed into me, the initial discomfort turned into a sensation I could not put my finger on. The succulent warmth that filled me, that caught me with each movement, was beyond description and I felt like I would drown in my own breath. He rhythmically took my guarded whispers from deep within, and as he rocked against me, I found I could no longer control my own surge. With my eyes shut tight and my head pushing in against the wall, my spasms released semen over his hands and against the wall. His cock reacted as my muscles closed in around it and I felt the warmth swim into me, filling me with each rush.

He left me with my thoughts afterwards, allowing me to gain some semblance of composure, and for that I was grateful. It might not have meant much to him, but for me it was the opportunity to relive the moment, to look to the future and figure out where I was heading. I thought I knew, but it took those minutes of solitude to decide. I knew that it was the end for me, and his note that night confirmed as much. As much as they should not have been, my own emotions towards release were mixed. Whilst freedom was welcomed with open arms, there was a degree of sorrow deep within me that he would be gone. I know that it should not have been that way, but it was. His promise in the note that we would meet again filled me with intrigue, although I did not know when that would be or where. It was to be the anticipation that drove me and provided an impetus in my life that had somehow been lacking before.

                    

The final moments there were tinged with regret. Not at what I had become, but by my ignorance of myself. How could it be that a stranger would know me better than I know myself? When he offered the cloth and chloroform to me, I could not bring myself to do it. It was a cowardly show on my part and, retrospectively, was my sole gesture to show that I was not to be the one to bring this to an end. He had started it, and he would have to finish it.

                    

When I awoke, I did so alone on the back seat of my car which was parked exactly where it had been when it all started. My thoughts were muggy at first and I lay there, not wanting to bask in the freedom, but to take in the past. When I finally made my way back home I did so slowly, almost nonchalantly. That night I sat in darkness on the couch, going through each and every memory that I had brought with me.

These last eighteen months have been turbulent for me as my eyes scan each and every person in the street for a sign of recognition. I have found myself looking at strangers with an air of anticipation - and for each person that I meet, I ask myself whether it could be him. I look for their height and their weight, I mentally undress them to see if they fit. It's futile I know, but I didn't really have that many ideas. I began to realise that even if I could not find him, maybe I could find someone else to continue where he had left off. That another man could be so tender, so gentle and so erotic, was one consuming thought that drove me to seek him out. I started going to gay bars, where I was constantly met with a wall of possibilities. Each and every person present could be him. But as I progressed into the community and started relationships of my own, a pattern began to emerge. I would be interested at first but whenever I ended up going home with someone, I would be eager to strip their clothes from them but when their torsos were revealed, I ached as yet another body became entwined with mine yet failed to live up to my expectations. Those were not unhappy times; I acquired a breadth of experience in an ever-growing repertoire, yet the touch that I sought eluded me.

Over a period of months, this happened with alarming frequency and I began to realise that each body I explored diluted the image I had of him, until I it dawned on me that the memories I took with me when I left were beginning to fade. Each body added to the tally meant that he became more distant to me, a sea of flesh that began to weaken the memories that had been so crisp to me the day that I left. I still recalled the scar every day and traced it in my head, but it began to fade with time.

I never reported what had happened to the authorities despite the multitude of crimes that had happened. I've heard it said that published criminal figures are only the tip of the iceberg and account for only 10% of illegal activity. I became an unknown statistic to the authorities, unwilling to come forward and expose myself because I knew that it would hit me at work. I know that Scully might have understood, she might have pushed me to report it, but ultimately she would have supported me in whatever I chose to do. But to go to her would have been an admittance of what I truly felt and I had enough trouble explaining it to myself. My quest that she so eloquently quoted back at me with regularity, became a standing joke, and if I disappeared for any length of time I was simply seeking the truth on my 'quest'. I smiled when she said that for the first time. How true, Scully, if only you knew how accurate you were. She knew that I was an obsessive individual who would not let a cause rest until the truth was found, and she told me as much. I knew she was right, she was just way off on what I was obsessing about.

                     

When I started out that day, it really felt like any other day. There was no intuition of what was to follow, nor where it would lead me. It had just been a low key investigation where a tip off had been received. It really hadn't been anything out of the ordinary, nothing that would cause me to think that things would turn out the way they have.

The archaic warehouse that housed the subject of our surveillance was a large bland construction, the expanse of floor giving Scully and myself little opportunity to cover it all. We had split up, and I made my way towards the office, the apparent central point in the building. I had been careful to edge against the wall out of sight. I looked around eyeing for details and stood behind a pillar, pausing for thought, keen to get a feel for what was happening ahead of me. It was at that stage that out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of someone else entering through the very same door that I had, and as I stood out of sight, the figure that drew near became ever clearer.

There was an air of doubt at first, I could not see a reason for him being there but the stealth in his step, the silence that surrounded his every move, told me enough to know. When the light from a shot window crossed his face, there was no mistaking the profile. An individual who has brought chaos, hatred, disdain and despair into the lives of everyone with whom he has ever had contact. And when I thought about it more, I assumed he was the hit man we had been tipped off about.

My knuckles were already white by the time he approached- an instinctive reaction that had never been practiced. It just happened. With my back pressed into the pillar, I kept my head turned slightly to the right, waiting the moment when he came into view. When it happened there was ferocity in the punch, it was borne of pure anger that once more our paths would cross. The epitome of all things evil. As I connected with his face, I felt his body fall away from my fist, and I found myself stepping out of the shadows to confront the man who lay strewn on the floor. His gun danced across the floor, scraping the concrete as it span out of reach and his eyes stared up and locked with mine as he tried to focus on his assailant. I aimed my gun at the bridge of his nose, anything less would have been an injustice.

"Krycek, you bastard. Hold it right there, or I swear I will shoot through your fucking brains!" The venom in my voice was clear.

He looked at me, not phased by the threat nor concerned that I might follow through, and then he stood up. I moved my aim to his chest; it gave me a better view of his face, of the expressionless features that walked towards me. There should have been something there; a flicker of something, but there was nothing. He was focused, determined and I swear the bastard was grinning as he turned his back on me.

"Krycek, stop there or I will shoot. I don't need a reason to." I knew that he would ignore me. If there's one thing I've learnt other than not to trust the man, it is that he will do what he wants and not what is expected of him. He likes to have the upper hand; he likes to mind fuck.

"In the back? You will not shoot me in the back, Mulder, they would hang you for it." He said it such a placid voice, not even raising the volume despite the predicament he found himself in.

My finger remained firmly on the trigger as the words disappeared in the air. I swear I heard him smile, there was no laughter, but there was something in the game that he played. I pondered his words and caught a flash of sunlight against the metal blade in his hand as it danced before me. He held his arm out, waving the knife before my eyes as he started edging back towards me. I could have pulled the trigger then, maybe I should have, but something stopped me. This was a personal battle and to take him out now would be an anti-climax. If I was to be the one to do it, I wanted to see the whites of his eyes and the suffering as he fell. That brief moment of realisation dawned across his face as it registered that the bullet was on its way. It would last only a fraction of a second, but it had to be that way. And as only an idiot would, I let that one thought dominate my thoughts as he came closer.

When he offered the knife to me, I leant forward to take it, like the fool that I sometimes am, impulsive to the end. As my fingers curled around his own, I focused on the hand with the knife, paying little attention to the elbow that pounded into my stomach. It took me by surprise, and as my grip on the knife tightened, the gun fell from my other hand, crashing to the floor in front of him. My fingers tightened around the knife and I snatched it from his grasp, leaving him unarmed.

"Scully," I shouted. I knew she was on the other side of the warehouse, but I had made potentially fatal mistakes already and I knew by then that the man we sought was in my grasp. There was little point in Scully remaining on the other side; besides, she was infamously better at retaining her gun than I was.

Alex Krycek is a man of many means, most of them devious and certainly none of them honourable, but when he kicked the gun away, I could not figure out why. His reasoning flickered only briefly across my mind as his hand came over his shoulder towards me and grabbed at my wrist before pulling it towards him and turning to face me. His face was cold and even, his jaw tensed as his eyes bore deep into mine. Their unfaltering glare chilled me, there was no emotion there, the eyes were an expression of his soul and looking into them, I saw nothing.

"You're losing it Mulder." The bastard smiled. A gun down each and a knife now with shared ownership and the bastard was just smiling. As Scully's footsteps drew close in from behind, my free hand connected with the side of his face and sent him stumbling back. I pulled at the knife in a vain attempt to make it mine, but he held his grip and pulled me back a little as he reeled from my punch, turning his back on me. I struggled to hold on. The footsteps had stopped but there was silence, and as our bodies entwined in the fight, he backed into me, pulling at the knife. Our proximity to each other made an evaluation of what followed difficult but I know that from somewhere he found the strength to wrench the knife around its handle, with both of ours hands still embraced, past his shoulder, pulling my arm at full length.

It was not until he let go of my wrist that I let my grip loosen a little, and when the knife came back into my view, I saw blood dripping from the blade. At first it did not register with me what had happened. I was too caught up with regaining control and maintaining some semblance of order to my thoughts, which were racing. It was only as he came back towards me, stumbling sideways onto the floor, that I saw his hands clutching his stomach and realised that the blood was his.

I stood in silence and watched his T-shirt absorbed red into white, spreading ever further with each breath that he took as he lay before me looking up.

It is difficult to be articulate about what I was thinking at that stage. Despite my hatred for the man, the force with which he had pulled my arm in towards him was clear to me. It might not have been to Scully, because her view was no doubt obscured, but I knew. He had let go as soon as the damage had been done. He had not even fought to overpower me but had simply taken my wrist and driven the knife deep into his own flesh. My hand might have been on that knife but I had not been the one inflicting damage, it had been all of his own work.

That I had wanted to end his days was irrelevant to me at that stage, I would like to have done it intentionally rather than under false pretences and I found myself lamenting his actions as I stood there. He looked over my shoulder, and I flicked my head to see Scully standing behind me, weapon at her side, staring at Krycek as the blood continued to seep into his T-Shirt. If I was to place his look, it would be one of searching. I don't think he was ever able to show her remorse, I don't think he had it in him and maybe he realised that the gesture might have been futile in any case. His words have never been taken at face value nor his gestures trusted. If it had been forgiveness that he sought from her, I don't believe it would have been forthcoming.

When he looked back at me, I thought I saw something in his eyes. Maybe it was remorse; it could have been reason. A reason for the act of self-mutilation. I thought about it hard. It could have been an act of hate. My hands had been on the knife when it entered him; maybe it was intention to fell the man whose hands they were. An act of defiance. As his eyes began to fade I began to believe that he had given up and that it had been his final gesture to link me into his death. How was anyone else to know that he had been the controlling force in his fate? Maybe past events had caught up with him, a personal history too tarnished to live with. Too many killings, too much deceit, and too much time spent running.

And I knew that it was not me that had driven that blade in. My hands might have been around the handle, but they were simply there. The wrong place at the wrong time.

With these thoughts coursing through me, I knelt down at his side and pressed into the wound. I guess it was instinct, it certainly wasn't planning. Everything seemed to happen so fast that I knew the only way to give myself time to work them over in my head was to slow it all down. And to slow it down might mean allowing him to live. The warm blood pumped through my fingers and onto his T-shirt with each rise and fall of his stomach, his eyelids wavered for seconds at a time, then closed. Each time I wondered if it would be the last, but he kept coming back with a slow laborious stare.

"Scully?" I turned to her, but she just stood there and stared at him. Not a flicker.

"Mulder, I say leave him here." Her voice was impassive, uncaring.

I often wondered whether his motives were selfish, whether they were dark and sinister, but as the warmth of blood ran between each finger of mine that pressed into him, a momentary flash made me think that maybe the man didn't even care about himself. A man whose sole motivation had been self-preservation appeared to me an individual void of emotion, of feeling and of self-being. And it struck me that if that was his reason for driving the knife into his stomach, then where was the rush to save him? Maybe that was his act of remorse, to allow me to be the one to end it. It was a lateral plane of thought, because he would leave me forever with the knowledge that although I had held the knife, it had really been him in control. And that had always been the essence of our relationship.

I took my hands from him and sat back. My hands bore the blood of the man who had spilt the blood of my family, and it was kind of ironic that I found myself wanting save him so that I could deny him the pleasure of death. I wiped the blood on my jacket and looked to Scully, who had not moved through it all. Her eyes could be the coldest blue; her most haunting look required little explanation. I alternated between the two of them and took my jacket off. I was never sure that she would understand that allowing Krycek to slip away would give him exactly what he wanted. I searched her face for agreement as I crumpled my blood stained jacket and looked back at Krycek. I thought she might at least shake her head if nothing else but I think she trusted me enough to know that I would have reasons. She never asked what they were but I was glad of her acceptance of my decision.

His breathing was now laboured - the irregularity evident. The rise and fall of his chest was at odds with the beat of his heart, and as the latter had become faster, his T-shirt became more sodden with each beat. The blood had started to pool on the outside of his clothing, and pushing the T shirt up his chest to get it out of the way, I saw for the first time the wound that was mine. The blood had started to congeal, and that which had not been able to absorb into his clothing, trickled down his side and onto the floor below. I wiped at the blood to clear it from the wound and across his stomach, but as I drew the bundle of cloth back towards me, I froze.

For the first time in 18 months I saw the end.

The one person who filled me with contempt, with anger and with an unrivaled hatred, watched intently as my gaze froze upon the four inch scar to the side of the gaping incision I had made in his stomach. I stared, tracing around its edges, feeling it with my eyes, touching from a distance. I sat there for an eternity, not wanting to let my eyes drift as the implications of what I saw sunk in. My instinct was denial, that my personal quest could not cross with business - the two were separate entities, there was no crossover. That Alex Krycek could be the man whom I had wanted to find so desperately, to feel that tender touch again- could not be so, but when I turned my head to look at him, the smile that crossed his face told me all I needed to know. My search was at an end.

I kept my eyes locked firmly with his as he lifted his arm and slowly tugged at the bottom of my shirt, pulling it from inside my trousers and lifting it up. He looked at my exposed chest and as his eyes saw the ring threaded through my nipple, he looked back at me and smiled. It was at that point I knew there was no doubt.

What he had done to me had preoccupied my thoughts without relent on each and every day for 18 months, but the truth was hard to take. That it could be him was nothing more than a vicious twist in a sordid story, and one that he had perpetuated. The mask, the robes and the lack of communication. It began to make sense. Had I known it was him, I would have fought from the start, I would have died in the cause to stop him. But he knew that. He had always promised answers before but had delivered just bits and pieces of a jigsaw that was way too big to fit together. With that smile I sensed that he wanted some sort of conclusion.

His eyes drifted shortly after, I could sense him lapsing in and out of consciousness, and the one answer he had given me looked in danger of being the last.

"Scully, get an ambulance." I turned to where she stood but she didn't move.

"Mulder, what is it?" She moved closer, peering down from above at a man who had changed little in her eyes over the course of the last few minutes.

"Scully, call an ambulance." My voice was more urgent than before and she trusted me enough to make the call. Sometimes explanations follow and the tone of my voice told her that there was no time to debate the issue. As she turned her back and walked away from us to make the call, he opened his eyes. A slow soulful movement that I had not seen before. For all the times I have seen nothing but evil and wanton destruction in those eyes, I now saw yearning

I brushed the tender underside of my thumb down the side of his cheek smearing blood along his cheekbone. When he was conscious he never stopped smiling once, it was more a look of fulfillment than laughter and all the while, those eyes that had hated, appeared to love. As he slipped away again, I spoke, knowing that he might hear but hoping, in some ways, that he wouldn't.

"You stupid fucking bastard." It was whispered-it was tender and I sincerely meant it. He was the most stupid bastard I had ever come into contact with. If he had thought that I would willingly engage in a relationship with him once his identity was known then he had underestimated me by a big margin.

"They'll be here soon, Mulder." Scully knelt opposite me and felt for his pulse. I took one look at her, at the streak of blood down his face, and took my hands away from him.

"You can take over, Scully. I've got to go." I stood up and backed away, not wanting to turn my back but knowing that I had to.

"Mulder, what is it?"

And I found myself walking away. My bloodied shirt hung outside of my trousers, my arms at my sides and my focus ahead of me on the door of the warehouse, and I just walked a thousand steps. I never did look back.

                   

When I got outside, a couple of local police cars raced towards me and, behind them in the distance, one I recognised. I kept my eyes ahead of me, a distant stare with no focus nor purpose. As Skinner's car approached me, he stopped and got out, leaving the door open behind him.

"Mulder, what is it?" he asked.

I didn't know what to say, so I shook my head and looked at the floor.

"Scully said that you stabbed Krycek."

The dusty gravel in front of my feet seemed infinitely more appealing than conversation at that point. I looked up at Skinner, my reflection in his glasses seeming all the more bizarre as the lenses fisheyed it. And I just looked at him silently.

"Mulder, you can't leave. Local PD are here already, this is a crime scene."

I knew, and I cursed Scully for calling him in the first place, but knew that she had no option. He reached out for my arm and I whipped it away from him. I didn't feel like having close contact with anyone, not restraint at least. But he moved again and took it anyway, pulling me alongside him as he walked towards the warehouse.

"We can speak later." Was all he said as we went back through the doors, ahead of the paramedics that had just arrived. I stood by those doors with my back to where he lay on the floor. I could hear Scully talking to Skinner as he approached, looking down at where Krycek lay. The words were muffled, but they could have been the crispest, most articulated phrases that came from her mouth. I still wouldn't have heard them. I shut out what was happening behind me and started to drown in my disappointment. I looked only briefly across at the door as they took him out, restrained and restricted as he lay on the trolley. How fucking ironic. How sweet.

                     

That night I returned home as soon as I could. The liquor store provided sweet inspiration to blot out what had happened and as I opened the second Pino Grigio and swigged straight from the neck of the bottle, there was a knock at the door. And that knock is why I find myself where I am today.

I was expecting it to be Scully, coming round to grill me for more but I opened the door and swayed a little as the bulk of AD Skinner grimaced at me. I turned back and sat on the couch as he made his way in, took his coat off and sat down. We sat in silence for nearly half an hour as I helped myself to the rest of the bottle, not even offering any up to my guest.

And then it happened. I broke. I started off with an array of obscure observations on life, but he sat and waited and watched. And I began to tell him every last detail about what had happened eighteen months previously. I told him about how my anger had subsided into acceptance, my inquisitions into intrigue and how I had spent eighteen months looking for the man. And all the time he sat there, Skinner did not flinch. He did not interrupt or comment and when I told him that I felt like I had been freed of any inhibitions that I might previously have had - he did not judge me. He just listened, that was until I arrived at what had happened in the warehouse that day.

"And today you found out that it was Krycek?"

I nodded solemnly.

"And because of what happened you don't want to go on record."

I nodded again. Then we sat in silence again. I knew that he was mulling it over in that thoughtful mind of his. He is a man of few words and I had never appreciated it more than on that night. If he had feelings or gut reactions to what I had told him, he never showed it. When I left the room to make coffee for us, he remained where he was and spoke only when I returned.

"So lets get this straight, Mulder. Not bureau stuff - personal level," he said. "You have wanted for eighteen months to find this man, to recapture what he gave you, but under mutual agreement."

I nodded.

"And you haven't found it with anyone else, despite trying desperately to. You have questions that need answers, and only Alex Krycek can give you those answers. Well, maybe he did it because it was the only way he knew how; maybe he didn't do it to fuck with your head. If he put his life on the line today so that you would know it was him, then I say that its not something he's taking lightly. Maybe he's just had his eye on you for a long long time and you might want to look at what he had to do to get close to you - I would call that committed. I would say that those acts were not the mark of the man you know. But then, maybe you don't really know him and I would say the only way you are going to find out is to go see him."

And with that he stood up to leave.

"But, what about the fact that it's him, you're not even freaked out by that?" I asked as he opened the door.

He turned to look at me as he put his coat on, and as he stepped from my apartment he simply whispered in my direction, his face lit up with a smile.

"Lets, just say that mine and Alex's paths have crossed before and there is another side to him that I think you have only just discovered."

I sat and watched the door close, and shut my eyes. The room still spun. All the while I was talking, I thought I would regret the conversation the next day. But as Skinner left, I found myself feeling a strange warmth towards the man whom had told me more about himself in the space of one sentence than I had managed to get in a lifetime of sober questioning.

                    

It took me three days to think about it. Three days in which I paced my apartment a thousand times over, and went to my local haunt to check out the talent. It was the first time I had been there and had not been desperate to leave with someone. It felt strange knowing that should I want it, I could have it on tap. But the journey to accepting him was a tough one, and as I stood at the bar and inspected each and every person there, I knew that they could not be him. No matter how nice they were as individuals, his touch had given me a profound acclimatisation to this scene, and whilst knocking back the beers, I decided that I would try.

Skinner phoned me yesterday to say that Krycek was free to go home today, although I had no idea where home was - I still don't. He had simply said that Krycek, or Alex as he called him, was desperate to see me. I went to the hospital with trepidation, not knowing how I would leave, but more importantly, whether I would leave alone.

The room they had put Krycek in was at the end of the corridor, and when I walked in, he was fast asleep. I didn't know whether I could go through with it or not, and stood in silence staring as he rested before me. I shut the blinds and locked the door behind me with a quiet touch, not wanting to alert any of the nurses nor wake him.

I lifted back the sheets and drank in the flesh before me. It was simple. I would repay him for what he had done either way. If I found myself unable to overcome the reservations that I had, then I would simply repay him and leave. It would not be much recompense given that he had spent nearly a week working on me, but it would be something and it would have to be enough. If something clicked in me, I would go with it and take him home.

He still slept as I allowed my fingertips to run across the scar, a faint touch that I hoped he would not notice in his sleep. Even when I pulled the sheets down to his calves he did not move. I dragged my fingers down further, across his boxers and hesitated momentarily. I held what was there and took a step back in time to a moment when I had not known. When I had a naïve innocence of thought, and a dream that the perfect touch belonged to a man with whom I would be able to share my life, not one whose history was prominent in my thoughts.

I stroked at the tender flesh inside of his thighs and he moved slightly, but when I looked to his face I knew he had not woken. His smell filled me with an urge, as I leant over his body, flaring my nostrils, allowing him to infiltrate my lungs. The smell was sweet, and it was one I recognised. Hovering above him, I found myself getting hard. Without any interaction, I was craving the flesh, the touch and fulfillment that only he had ever given. It was at that point that I realised that Skinner had been right, not to come and see me, but to let me know that there was a different Krycek to the one I knew. One that he had experienced, and whilst he gave little away in the smile as he left that night, it had told me that his memories were fond ones.

With a fragile motion, I lifted myself onto the bed and rested my knees on either side of Krycek and looked up at the peaceful face that showed no history, only tranquillity. With the deftest of touches, I freed him from his boxers and took his flaccid cock in my hand. I already knew the outcome by that stage as my own cock strained, driven maybe by the excitement of our surroundings and being caught, but more by the fact that I had seen the flesh and touched it. And wanted more.

As I took him in my mouth and began to give slow delicate licks up his shaft, he started to stir. I continued, looking to his face, to the emerald eyes that had once been so dark to me and saw that he was smiling. There is nothing as sweet as the soulful eyes of a loved one giving head, allowing their eyes to meet with yours whilst continuing to lick, to suck. It had only happened to me once but I had never forgotten the experience and as our eyes met, my mouth continued. His cock hardened in my mouth, though he never moved once, nor spoke. I allowed my teeth to edge over its head, causing him to gasp. He placed his hand on my head, caressing my hair and massaging my scalp in rhythm to my movements. As I engulfed him and sucked, he started to thrust beneath me, holding my head all the while, but never forcing - simply guiding and encouraging.

I was consumed with his body as it writhed beneath my touch and thought about my own cock as it begged for release, but this moment was not for me. I quickened my rhythm, feeling the tensing of muscles that combined with incoherent groans from deep within and, as he came, I took everything that he gave and fought to swallow as quickly as he delivered. I sucked every last drop from him and licked at the scar before stepping down from the bed and covering him with the sheets.

He said nothing but held his hand out to me, and I took it in my own. I found myself lifting it to my mouth and licking along the back of it, not freeing myself from the gaze of conclusion that was etched across his face.

                       

And so I find myself now driving out of the hospital car park, one hand on the steering wheel, the other on the knee of the man to my side. Taking him home is probably not the smartest idea I've ever had. As intelligence goes, I feel I have been bestowed to some extent, but what I am doing defies logic in some ways, given our past. As plans go, mine was about the dumbest I had ever come up with. But as I drive, the only thing that is more stupid than taking Alex Krycek home with me, would be writing the one person who has made a difference out of my life. Skinner was probably right about it all, I figure. I don't know what will happen now, the whole thing feels crazy. But no more crazy than searching for eighteen months for an individual who fueled me with desire, and filled me with obsession, only to walk away once I found him.

End.

  
Archived: July 04, 2001 


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